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It wasn’t my fault that my hair had turned into an unmanageable, frizzy mess due to the cheap boxed hair dye chemicals. With so much harsh treatment, I was almost surprised that it hadn’t all fallen out.
I was still tense, but I looked up at him as he messed with the water above my head, and I detected nothing but professionalism from the man. That helped me relax a little. When the warm water finally hit my head and his hands massaged my scalp, I melted into the chair, unable to hold back a small whimper.
This was nothing like the way the men dyed my hair. It felt amazing.
My eyes fluttered closed for a moment, only to pop open again as the man grunted in disapproval. I looked up at him again to see that his attention was still on my hair. He muttered something in a different language, but I was pretty sure it was a curse. Despite his obvious disgust at the state of my hair, his touch remained gentle and confined to my head. I relaxed further as I watched him pull out bottles of what looked like expensive, professional-grade hair products. I didn’t recognize any of them, but I’d never had the money to get my hair done at a salon. A haircut once or twice a year was the most I could expect growing up.
The barber worked his fingers through my hair, applying a white goop that made my scalp tingle. I found myself feeling pampered and at ease. My eyes drifted toward the man’s face, and I noticed his scars were similar to Sebastian’s. I wondered if they were burn scars, and if so, how painful they must have been.
As the barber suddenly caught my gaze, I quickly averted my eyes to the ceiling, feeling embarrassed for staring at him. He then let out a low chuckle.
“Do I look like a monster to you?”
He’d barely spoken so far, but now I noticed that his accent was thick. I’d heard something similar in my time with the sex traffickers, and I thought it might be Russian. I wasn’t sure. Unfortunately, I’d met horrid men from all over the world, and it was hard to keep track of what they all sounded like. Not that they all talked. They didn’t come to me for conversation.
The barber’s voice was low, and he didn’t seem upset, but I didn’t answer the question. He’d been nice enough so far, and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
But I couldn’t contain my curiosity. As he massaged a shampoo that smelled like honey into my hair, I finally got up the courage to voice my question.
“How did you get those scars?”
I expected a bit of reluctance or even a refusal to answer, but the barber responded to my question without hesitation. It seemed likely that this was not the first time he had been asked about his scars.
“A few years ago, my barber shop was the site of an electrical fire and I was unable to get away.”
“I’m sorry.”
He wasn’t giving many details, and I was thankful. I was sure it was a horrifying experience.
“It’s how I met Sebastian. We were in the same hospital wing.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “What happened to him?”
This time, the man hesitated. When he finally spoke, his voice was even lower, and I had to strain to hear it.
“He was in France, at a little cottage with his wife. There was a fire, and Sebastian rushed in to save her. He couldn’t.”
I thought about Sebastian’s reaction when I asked about Charlotte yesterday. She had to be his wife.
“He wouldn’t give up on getting to her,” the barber continued, rinsing the shampoo out of my hair and adding another product. “The firemen had to pull him out, but by the time they got to him, his clothing had caught fire. The fire had burned most of his upper and lower body. He had to have extensive skin grafts.”
My heart ached. He’d been hurt so badly trying to get to his wife? He must have loved her so much.
As I was lost in my thoughts about what the barber had shared with me, the sound of the water abruptly stopped, and the chair was raised. Looking at the mirror, I noticed that my blonde hair was gone, and my natural dark chestnut hair was back, wet and unrecognizable. I had an urge to touch it, but I restrained myself, feeling as though it couldn’t be real.
It had been so long since I saw my natural hair that I almost didn’t recognize myself.
“Come,” the barber said, gesturing to the chair in front of the mirror.
Walking over to the barber, I found myself transfixed by my reflection, unable to look away. After swapping the cape for a dry one, he proceeded to blow-dry my hair, the warm air feeling pleasant against my skin. With the chair turned away from the mirror, I could no longer see myself. Once done blow-drying, he started trimming and styling my brown locks. Although he didn’t take off much length, he cut off the dead ends and layered it.
“This is much better,” he said as he worked. “But how did it get so bad?”
My smile vanished when he asked the question. Although he had shared his and Sebastian’s stories with me, I couldn’t bring myself to answer. The thought of discussing it made me too emotional, and I was afraid of breaking down. Plus, I still didn’t want Sebastian to find out.
The barber didn’t push me for a response. He just kept working on my hair in a comfortable silence. When he was finally done, he spun the chair back around, and my mouth dropped open. I had been here for hours, and every minute was worth it. I finally looked like my old self again. It had been four years since I looked like this, and it was hard to hold back the tears. I reclaimed a piece of myself that was stolen from me. Sebastian had no idea, but he’d just given me something amazing that I didn’t even know I needed.
My natural hair was thick and curly, and it shined under the barber shop lights. The barber brushed my hair back into a high ponytail and produced a purple ribbon from a drawer, tying it around the band holding my hair in place.
